Walmart has announced it is phasing out its “diversity, equity and inclusion” programmes. It’s a further sign that the woke DEI agenda is in retreat across the private sector and, with the election of Donald Trump, in Government, says Kate Andrews in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
The company is not undertaking tweaks to those policies, but a complete overhaul. It is pulling certain products from its shelves, including ‘chest-binders’ and trans books marketed to children. Rather than injecting another $100 million into the Center for Racial Equity – a non-profit set up in 2020 to give a boost to minority-owned companies – the fund will be wound down. Internally, there will be change, too: the phrase DEI is to be removed from company materials.
“We are willing to change alongside our associates and customers who represent all of America,” a Walmart spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. “We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect.” It appears that company bosses have clocked that seemingly innocuous words like ‘diversity’ have taken on a far deeper, more politicised, meaning. While Walmart insists that it remains committed to these ideas in their genuine form, it is clearly rejecting what the phrase DEI has come to represent: a radical version of identity politics that Americans just rejected at the polls.
The statement from Walmart doesn’t leave much room for doubt that its decision is linked to changing political tides. The largest employer in America – the federal Government – is also about to experience a radical shake-up when Trump gets back into the Oval Office and instructs his new Department of Government Efficiency – run by Elon Musk – to slash every DEI initiative it can unearth. It’s no real surprise, then, that America’s largest private employer – Walmart – might follow suit.
But is Trump really shifting the direction of the wind? Or was he blown into office once again by voters who had already made up their mind that DEI had gone too far?
Walmart may be making changes after the election, but plenty did so beforehand. Harley Davidson ditched some of its DEI programmes this spring, making clear that it had no hiring quotas and would remove “socially motivated content” from staff training. Just before election day, meanwhile, it was revealed that Boeing had also scrapped its DEI policy. It had come under fire after several deadly aircraft accidents had left people – including Musk – asking questions about the company’s priorities.
These changes came after the big tech companies, including Meta and Google, scaled back their DEI hires in 2023, despite commitments made only a few years previous to expand these roles and departments.
It seems that the trendsetter here isn’t Walmart – or even Donald Trump. Change within the country’s biggest institutions and corporations reflects, rather than dictates, where the country has been moving for some time.
Worth reading in full.
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